As a Nigerian kid who grew up in Nigeria you must be familiar with the consequences associated with picking money found, especially randomly, around a bush, in school but definitely on the floor. I remember there was a time kids were said to be turning into goats and chickens. My all-time favourite remains being turned into a yam. Truthfully, I never witnessed any of these, but who was I not to believe.
This story has a similar narrative, although, we didn’t turn into goats or yam. It was a pee-in-your-pants experience. So here we go…
Mother had warned us sternly on a few things; do not talk to strangers, do not collect things from strangers, do not take what is not yours and never, ever pick money on the floor…
We were walking home from the Otedola’s who had brought us back from school. Their house was like 20 houses from ours. I was about 6 and my brother was 8 years old. We had 3 other people with us; two of them were older. Thinking about it now, they must have been like 10 years old.
While walking down the road, we stumbled on a 5 naira note. See, these days, the only thing a 5naira note can buy you is a candy with after taste, but then, it could get you quite a number of things. As children who had the fear of their mother, we encouraged the others to ignore the money and move, but they insisted. The eldest one, Feranmi, did a little neutralizing dance around the money, then picked it up.
“We need to drop it; the owner will come find it” My brother must have said
“No, for it to be there now, it means the person doesn’t need it” Feranmi responded. Sola and Saraki were indifferent and I did not care. So here is the thing, we had 4 people against my brother; he automatically lost.
“But my mum will be mad at us” My cultured, smart and obedient brother said; I agreed too.
Feranmi stepped forward dramatically and said “She doesn’t have to know, which is why I will place a curse on anyone, who snitches on us”
We were young and didn’t even understand what a curse was, but Feranmi knew just what she was doing. She placed a curse saying, “Whoever tells anyone about this money, may the river of life drown such a person” She then forced us to say Amen. Well, this is where I will warn folks to be careful about whom their children hang out with. To my mother, Feranmi was a very responsible 10-year-old; an angel, but then she was more.
After saying Amen, we walked to a shop and Feranmi bought us biscuits with the money. Thinking about it now, I am not sure she shared it equally; that girl was too smart for us. She handed us the biscuits and we continued our journey home. Well, you all know as a sharp one, I immediately opened my biscuit and started eating. My brother of course did not eat his, he tried to stop me, but hey, we have been cursed already, the least I can do is enjoy the biscuits.
A piece of biscuit and a gulp of water after, we ran into this crying child. Above every other look, she was distressed! She walked past us, looking for something frantically. Well, your guess is as good as mine. We paused, nobody had opened their wraps except me. I began to shiver; I knew I was in trouble. Even if we wanted to return the money, I had eaten some of my biscuits.
Feranmi told us to keep a straight face as we doubled up, soon we started running, which was suspicious. The girl ran after us and asked where we got the money for the biscuits. Before Feranmi could manufacture a lie, I had started crying. I must have said “Feranmi picked it, bought us biscuits and told us not to tell anyone” Do not judge me, I wasn’t the snitch, we all wanted to snitch, I was just the first person to say what was on everybody’s minds.
Apparently, the child-teenager was a maid, who had misplaced the money meant for grinding pepper and her boss had sent her out of the house. The frustrated girl dragged us by our uniforms and threatened to follow us home. That threat was my main problem. See, it would have been better to drown in that river of life than have someone tell my mother that we picked money from the floor, used it to buy biscuits and I had the guts to even eat the biscuit.
Feranmi hit my occiput so hard; she was pissed that I didn’t allow her lie, to cover us up and of course, I broke the pact. She pleaded with the teen to follow us to the biscuit woman, so we could return the biscuits and get her money for her. She agreed. We went back to the biscuit seller and pleaded with her. After minutes of pleading with the seller, which was to no avail, one uncle (sent from heaven) became interested in the case. After we had narrated the story to him, he scolded us but paid for my biscuit and collected the 5 naira from the seller…
The only good thing was that I was able to eat the remaining biscuits without sharing with anyone. If they had followed my intuition and opened the biscuits, I am sure God would have sent that uncle to pay for all our biscuits.
Morale of the story- Always follow my intuition.
It would have been nice if the people in this story are the people you know, but they are not; at least, not yet!
A quick prayer for you before you leave! May you find helpers in strange places!
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